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Spent 11 hours on a Canon AE-1 shutter that just needed the mirror bumper replaced
A customer brought in an AE-1 from 1979 saying the shutter was capping at high speeds. I tore the whole thing down, cleaned the shutter magnets, checked the timing with my tester, put it back together, and it still capped. Did that whole cycle twice more over two days. Turned out the mirror bumper foam had turned to goo and was slowing the mirror just enough to block the shutter at 1/1000. Eleven hours of work for a 10 cent piece of foam. Anyone else been burned by mirror bumper foam on these old Canons?
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mia_singh2413d ago
That's just called doing the job right. You found the actual problem, that's what matters. The foam was bad, you fixed it, done. Half the shops out there would've handed it back with a "shutter's worn out, nothing we can do" and charged the guy for the teardown anyway. You ate the hours but the camera works and the customer's happy. That's not getting burned, that's the cost of not guessing. Nobody can diagnose a gooey bumper by staring at the camera from across the bench, you only know after you rule out everything else. Eleven hours stings but it's a one time lesson, next AE-1 with weird capping you check the foam first and it's a twenty minute fix. I'd take that trade every time over being the guy who throws parts at a camera until something sticks.
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